Thursday, July 27, 2006

I dreamt that when I woke up in the morning I was bleeding as if my period had just started. I guess I forgot I was pregnant because I threw on a maxi pad and didn't think about it.

Later I was out walking with my husband and it suddenly hit me: I shouldn't have my period, I'm pregnant! I turned to my husband and said "I have to go to the hospital right now!" My husband said "Okay" in that calm tone he always has when I'm freaking out.

In front of the hospital there was some event going on. Tonnes of people were hanging out in their bathing suits having some kind of beach party or something. We were on the wrong side of the hospital to get to the emergency room and it took us forever to get all the way around the people.

When I got into emergency there were all kinds of tables laid out and people were doing crafts and fundraising for something. My brother was there and he said "Hey Jen! You're here to help with the fundraiser!"

"No!" I screamed and told him to shut up. Then I felt bad for being mean, because he didn't know and was just being nice.

Some nurse piped in and said something like "Emergency is being used for the fundraiser today, you should go to--"

"No!" I cut her off. "This is emergency and I'm having an emergency! Help me! Save my baby!" I was crying now.

Finally a young doctor came. We sat down in what looked like a large craft closet. I told him about the bleeding and he asked when my due date was. "February 5th," I said and he started counting on his fingers to finger out how far along I was. "3 months!" I told him, getting frustrated.

The doctor said "No need to worry. There's less risk of miscarriage after 3 months."

"But I'm bleeding!" I said. "I shouldn't be bleeding. Aren't you going to examine me or sew me up or something?" But you could tell the doctor considered the visit over. GAH!

I woke up terrified that I was going to miscarry, but I checked and there was no blood so I think I'm okay.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Today I had an appointment at yet another employment agency, the purpose of which is to find any old office job as quickly as possible and get myself some mat leave. Today's agency is about a 20 minute walk from my apartment so I didn't have to borrow a car or use up bus moneys.

As is routine when going to any kind of job-getting meeting, I dressed in my finest interview duds. My fave interview pants are these grey pin stripe babies that make me look like an office panthress on the prowl. I looked hot (in a good way) but I was a little afraid that I would be hot (in a bad way) from the burning July sun.

On the way there I was feeling a bit toasty and had to stop on the way for a bottle of iced tea, but there was a bit of a breeze which increased my comfort level and preserved my panthress hotness.

The agency gals were impressed by my test scores (which I assume the grey pin-stripes had a lot to do with) and after only 2 short hours of mindless testing I was totally ready to take on the world (and the heat) once again.

The thing about Canadian weather is that one can never assume anything as the sky radically changes personality every hour (or sometimes every few minutes).

When I got outside that nice breeze had turned into a monstrous wind that made every tree along the road look like it was having a temper tantrum. Great clouds of dust were blowing off the road construction onto the sidewalk. In the distance, fork lightening lit up the sky. For the love of Spock, thought I, please don't let it start raining until I get home!

Unfortunately the Star Trek gods were unresponsive, and in about five minutes the skies opened up and poured liter after liter of water on my poor little head. By the time I got home, the panthress had become a drowned kitten.

Oh well, at least it didn't happen on the way there, or my test scores wouldn't have been quite so phenomenal. And don't worry, I changed into dry clothes right away so I won't catch a disease that causes me to give birth to a deaf dumb flipper baby.

Friday, July 21, 2006

My sweet German grandmother is still in the hospital, awaiting a place in a home. She can't live in her condo anymore because she is too alzeimerish and needs too much care. It was my uncle who initially got the idea that Adam and I should take care of her condo. We don't want to sell EVERTHING she has out from under her and besides, Omi proclaims to everyone who'll listen (and many people that don't) that I am her favourite grandchild (though, trust me, her other grandkids are just as fab).

Omi's condo has all the luxuries I dream about: washer & drier, dishwasher, balcony. And the building has all the luxuries I wouldn't even dream about: outdoor pool, exercise machines, pool table. The deal is we live there for what we're paying in rent now (substantially less than what the condo is worth). At first I felt a bit guilty taking advantage of my poor grandmother's situation, but Adam and I are doing a lot of work packing up her stuff and fixing up the place. Plus I couldn't say no, not with the baby coming.

Anyhoo. We've been spending the past 2 weeks transforming Germangrandmotherland into Jen and Adam's happening pad. First we had to tear out the carpet (it was stained and made the whole place smell like certain bodily fluids) and find a place that would put in nice laminate flooring for not too much money.

The floor goes in Monday, so we packed up all the furniture, photos, and nick nacks and stuffed them into the bedroom. Then we took down some grandmotherly wall paper and painted the pink living room walls a gorgeous shade of lime green. To be fair, Adam did the painting. We're both afraid that if I pick up a roller, our baby will come out with a lime green head or something.

Speaking of the baby, check out the ticker at the top of the page. It's counting down to my due date, February 5th, but I highly doubt that I'll have baby in my arms by the time the stork reaches the finish line. Children in my family are too lazy to leave the womb on time. On the other hand, Adam was 3 weeks early. You never know.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

We went up to Grundy Lake (near Sudbury). We being, myself and Adam, Becca and Drew, and Kerri and Kevin. We chose Grundy Lake because it was the only park that had a site available on the Canada Day Long Weekend, so we were pleasantly surprised at the park's coolness. It's part of the precambrian shield (left here by glaciers for our enjoyment) so there's a lot of magestic smooth rocks everywhere. Trees are able to grow in the super shallow soil because of the moss, which holds 16 times its weight in water (I read the placards on a hike). Anyway it's pretty. There was a really nice beach right near our site and the washrooms were reasonably close (though never close enough for the pregnant girls).

While camping for me usually involves lots of zoodles, kd, beans and spam, Kevin preferrs playing gourmet chef. We had (among other things) pancakes with homemade strawberry sauce, homemade bread, and a ham cooked right on the fire (and not one of those pre-cooked ones either). Everything turned out delish (even the ham, which I'm not the biggest fan of). Unfortunately most of the time I felt too pregnant to truly enjoy it (I had to buy beans and spam to satisfy a craving). I was really glad Becca was there to be preggers with me.

We did a lot of swimming and fishing. I think I was the only one fishing who didn't catch a fish (the fishes that were caught by others were too small to keep). I caught a turtle though. Twice. I think he was playing a game with me. I saw his little head come up right near the bobber then a minute later I had a bite. I reeled it in and yelled "Holy sh*t! It's the turtle." I didn't really hook him, he was just holding on and taking a ride. He let go before I got him, but that's okay since I wasn't really fishing for turtles anyway. I cast again, and again I saw his tiny head peaking out near my bobber. Here we go again, thought I, as a reeled in the mischievous turtle. I think he had a good time. He never did get my worm though.

Wednesday: Adam's birthday

I wanted to make my cuddly bear's birthday special. I made a cheese cake, with strawberry sauce (the strawberry sauce I learned how to make from Kevin on the camping trip, and I thought it would be tastey on cheese cake and I was right). For dinner I made corn, garlic bread, and cabbage rolls. I hate cabbage rolls, but they are Adam's favourite. I cheated and bought the frozen kind because I figured Longo's can make them better than I can. Adam loved everything (it's all about the food). For his present, I got him some motorolla walkie talkies. I knew he'd like them because they were expensive, and yet mostly useless. The range on them is supposed to be 16km, but it's probably closer to 2. He liked them anyway. This morning I was woken up to the sound of a walkie talkie sitting on my pillow going "hissss. Are you awake yet?"

Today

My boss at the census enumerating place called and said I don't have to work tonight or ever. Though this means I'll have a lot less money than I anticipated, I'm taking this as a good thing. Apparently they got everything done yesterday (when I was home celebrating my hubby's b-day) and now there's no work at all. I find this difficult to believe, but then they keep changing their mind about stuff. Last week, they allowed everyone to take off the long weekend if they wanted it. When everyone did (duh) they threatened to close up the call centre. Now it seems they're closing up because we were too efficient and finished everything (we were supposed to work until the 21st). I'm glad it's over. About the only thing I'm bad at, and what I seem to keep having to do, is talking to people over the phone (especially when I have to sell, or convince people to do something). I'm getting better at it, because of all the unwanted practice, but I'll never be super talented at it or anything.

Today I also went with my mom to visit my grandmother. Omi was delighted to see us. I showed her my ultrasound photo, and an album of mine and Adam's baby pictures (we put that together for the wedding). She likes looking at photos, it's an alzeimer thing. Everytime I see her she asks me if I want to have a boy or a girl. I always say "a healthy baby", and she says that I'm very smart. She doesn't always remember when we visit, but she still remembers me, and tells me how nice my husband is and that I'm her favourite grandchild (unfortunately she often says this in front of my siblings and cousins).

Anyway, after we looked at photos, my mom put in My Big Fat Greek Wedding on her laptop. Unfortunately Omi's in a special bed now that's filled with air, and for some reason needs a loud fan to keep it inflated. Even with the volume turned right up on the laptop, we couldn't hear. The bed looks comfy though. Omi fell asleep and we left.